Glossary

Accountable Property- is any personal property, tangible or intangible, (see definition of property) that is classified as sensitive or that has an original total acquisition cost of $5,000 or more.

Accounting Classification Code Structure (ACCS) - Accounts to which accounting transactions are charged. The ACCS consists of the following elements: Bureau, Fiscal Year, Project, Task, Fund Code, Program, Organization, Object Class and User Defined (for future use). Users, however, are only responsible for keying in the following elements of the code: Fiscal Year, Project, Task, Organization Code and Object Class. All of the other elements are derived and automatically populated by the system.

Commerce BankCard Center (CBC) - provides the Department of Commerce with the day-to- day operation and administration of the Commerce Purchase Card program.

Mandatory Sensitive Personal Items - includes firearms, digital cameras, video cameras, televisions, photocopy machines, multi-purpose fax/printer/copy machines, facsimile machines, and video cassette players and recorders. Also included are automatic data processing equipment, which includes personal computer systems (desktop and tower), laptop, notebook, hand-held computing devices, external modems, external disk drives including CD and DVD drives, all external printers (other than label printers), desktop and floor stand plotters, desktop and hand-held scanners, graphic tablets, and global positioning satellite receivers. Other items can be added and the list can be revised.

Property - is anything that may be legally owned.

•   Real property is land and improvements to the land such as buildings and structures.



•   Property that becomes an integral part of a building such as heating and air conditioning units are also considered to be real    property.



•   Personal property is anything tangible that is not real property other than records of the Federal government, naval vessels,    cruisers, aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines (FPMR 101-43.001-23).



•   Intellectual property is intangible property such as a copyright, trade secret or a patent.



•   Financial property is an instrument such as a stock or bond.

Query - A search for information.

Reconciling - The process whereby cardholders review purchase card transactions daily and record accounting, procurement, and property information. The cardholder will reconcile the transaction by marking it with an "R" for reconciled or "D" for dispute. The reconciliation process also includes reconciling a credit with and without a disputed transaction and swept transactions.

Sole Source Justification - A statement indicating why the buyer purchased the item from a particular vendor without getting bids. This is necessary only when purchasing non-furniture items priced at $2,500 or greater. This rule also pertains to GSA-scheduled items.

Swept (Sweep) - A transaction will be swept by the system if: 1) the cardholder has not reconciled it within approximately 22 calendar days after the Commerce Department received the transaction from the bank or 2) the cardholder has reconciled it, but the cardholder's supervisor has not yet approved the transaction within approximately 22 calendar days after the Commerce Department received the transaction from the bank. A special Sweep may also be run at fiscal year-end to ensure that year-end obligations are recorded for all appropriate bankcard transactions.

The sweeping process places these transactions into the Core Financial System (CFS) for payment. The transactions are charged to the default ACCS unless the cardholder specifies a different ACCS (even if the transaction is waiting for the approval of the cardholder's supervisor).

The cardholder still must reconcile swept transactions (they appear in the Reconcile Transaction (BC-605) window as an "S"). The user may add accountable property information, charge the transaction to another ACCS, and add notes. A new ACCS and other changes made after a transaction has been swept won't take effect until the cardholder's supervisor approves the transaction. The cardholder's supervisor must approve the transaction whether or not any changes are made.